Following a $717,000 budget surplus rollover from a strong fiscal 2013, the Tompkins County Budget, Capital, and Personnel committee has announced it will be voting on allocating $143,000 of that amount to specific county committees in the coming week.

The amount being evaluated comprises only about one fifth of last year’s surplus, but the money comes with the operations and desires of five different committees involved. The Tompkins County Government Operations committee alone is asking for $83,280 of the sum to go towards software licenses, website renovations, reimbursements to its general account as well as a few other technological advancements. Next in line is the Tompkins County Public Safety committee, which is asking for $25,000 for an improved e-voucher system as well as computer renovations. The rest of the requests are split up between $10,673 for the county’s Health and Human Services committee and $1,900 to the county’s Facilities and Infrastructure committee mostly for software and technology improvements. The Budget committee itself rounds out all the current requests and is seeking approximately $21,800 for its own software upgrades, new printers, advanced laptops and some furniture.

Jim Dennis, the Chair of the Budget committee said that the requests will be voted on and verified this coming Tuesday. He explained that at the end of every budget cycle the Budget committee goes through each of the 35 county committees’ finances and reviews their rollovers. He said that committees typically will have a surplus from the year prior meaning that the they can send requests to use their surplus for particular items. The Budget committee is then in charge of reviewing and approving their requests and then will give the committees discretion to spend their surplus.

Dennis also added that the 2014 budget is already near two thirds used and invested. In September and October, the 2015 county budget will begin to be sorted out and planned, with the budget being finalized in Mid-November after being reviewed by the Extended Budget Committee